The present invention relates to excavation buckets. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with excavation buckets incorporating an impact actuator assembly.
The prior art is replete with configurations of excavating buckets designed to better dig into hard soils.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,438 entitled: xe2x80x9cExcavating bucket having power driven, individually controlled digging teethxe2x80x9d issued on Dec. 2nd, 1986 to Daniel S. Mozer describes an excavating bucket having a leading edge provided with a row of individually pneumatically driven digging teeth. Each digging tooth is connected to a pneumatic impact hammer that reciprocates the tooth at high speed and with great force.
The excavating bucket described by Mozer has several drawbacks. For example, since pneumatic impact hammers are used the earth working machine to which the excavating bucket is mounted must be provided with an air compressor and adequate supplemental conduits between the air compressor and the bucket. Also, since each tooth is connected to an individual pneumatic impact hammer, the total weight of the excavating bucket is much higher than the weight of a conventional bucket, which is a disadvantage when the arm of the earthmoving machine is fully extended, since conventional earth moving machines are designed to move weights similar to the weight of conventional buckets. Yet another drawback of the excavating bucket of Mozer is that each moving tooth requires a certain amount of clearance to be reciprocately moved and that dirt and water may enter the hollow casing enclosing the pneumatic hammers by each of the tooth to body clearances.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide an improved excavating bucket incorporating an impact actuator.
Another object of the invention is to provide an excavating bucket incorporating an impact actuator free of the above mentioned drawbacks of the prior art.
More specifically, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided an excavation bucket comprising:
a bucket body including a floor portion having a longitudinal axis and lateral side portions;
a movable floor so mounted to the bucket body as to (a) be longitudinally slidable between a retracted position and an extended position, and (b) provide a free space between the floor portion and the movable floor;
means for selectively slide the movable floor between the retracted and extended positions; the sliding means being mounted in the free space.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following non restrictive description of preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.